


Homecomings

by squirenonny



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, F/M, Post-War, complete fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 04:20:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4465241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squirenonny/pseuds/squirenonny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four months after the Battle of Hogwarts, Remus returns to teach Defence Agains the Dark Arts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecomings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OreliaW](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OreliaW/gifts).



Walking into the Great Hall four months after the Battle of Hogwarts was the best sort of homecoming.

Remus had been here more than once since the battle, of course, helping out with the reconstruction as he was able. There was hardly a wizard in Europe who didn’t apparate to Hogsmeade at least once to volunteer. The damage, magical and mundane, to the castle, grounds, and village kept them all busy through the summer.

Tonight was the first time Remus was able to see _home_ and not just the scars.

(He was eleven, small and lonely and bowing under the weight of stares. The Great Hall was awe-inspiring for a whole different reason. Hundreds of students, and any one might discover his secret. For the first time, Remus was afraid to be seen.)

This time, he walks with head held high, smiling at students and staff alike. There’s not a soul in the room, except perhaps the odd muggleborn who hasn’t yet heard the gossip, who doesn’t know Professor Lupin is a werewolf.

And they smile, and they shout greetings, and his seat at the staff table is buried in a veritable mountain of chocolates. The Chocolate Frog on his plate vanishes beneath the table, and leaves behind a card bearing Remus’s own portrait.

* * *

Professor McGonagall is Headmistress now, and though no one doubts her ability to manage Gryffindor along with the school at large, she takes impartiality very seriously.

She asks Remus to fill the vacancy.

After the feast, he climbs familiar stairs to Gryffindor Tower and welcomes the students—his students—home.

(He is thirteen, curled in an overstuffed armchair that has always been in the Tower and will always be in the Tower. James lays on the floor at his feet, flipping through a Quidditch magazine and sneaking glances across the common room toward Lily while Sirius groans beneath a crimson pillow.)

Remus has grown used to being welcomed in Hogwarts’ halls, but the roar of cheers that greet him when he steps through the portrait hole still take his breath away. Only the sixth and seventh years remember his last stint as Defence professor, but he distinctly hears first and second years telling each other how their Head of House is the best professor at Hogwarts.

* * *

He starts every class on boggarts, though many of them already know how to fight them.

There has been too much war, and too many of his students still bear the lines of grief and the dark circles that tell of nightmares. It’s important to Remus that this generation not be defined by their fears.

(He is eighteen, no longer a student, now a soldier. He has killed, and he has seen friends be killed, until his dreams run red with blood. Solace is James and Sirius and Lily, is butterbeer or stronger and sharing memories of simpler times and pranks that would have made Peeves proud.)

Remus’s heart aches to see how many boggarts become Voldemort, become dementors, become Death Eaters and dead loved ones. Each class begins with tears of grief and fear, yet each class, somehow, ends with tears of laughter.

Students linger after class, or come visit him in his office, to thank him.

* * *

He meets Tonks at the door of their cottage in Hogsmeade.

Her hair turns a brighter pink at the sight of him; neither time nor war has dulled that glow in her eyes and the answering warmth in Remus’s chest. He wraps his arms around her, sinks into her bubblegum scent, and whispers _I love you_ in her ear.

The force behind her answering kiss pushes him through the front door, and Harry barks out a laugh. Teddy coos something that might be a greeting, might be a laugh, might be the beginnings of a squall, but it makes Remus smile all the same.

(He is thirty-eight, and this is a homecoming he will never grow tired of.)


End file.
